Welcome to FinHeaven Fans Forums! We're glad to have you here. Please feel free to browse the forum. We'd
like to invite you to join our community; doing so will enable you to view additional forums and post with our
other members.

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

If you are a member in good standing, then you can navigate to the 2015 Miami Dolphins Media Guide from the navigation bar at the top of the forums. Also, in the sticky section of the main forum, there is a link to vote on your top 50 dolphins players of all time.

So you are saying that before the ACA/Obamacare, you had an insurance plan with a copay, low deductible, and you could see a specialist any time you wanted? You are also saying that other people had similar plans but now they have higher deductibles now too? How exactly did the ACA/Obamacare cause that?

James, We had choices of HMO's or other plans. We have switched over to a new plan that has deductibles...no co-pays anymore and we have been advised that this is in preparation for Obamacare/ACA.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins, For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.

Ok it took me a while but I actually found your questions that you keep demanding I answer.
If it is so wonderful and 90% of the criticism is untrue then how come..... 1.) I am experiencing it first had with my healthcare plan that we have been told straight forward that it is preparation for obamacare. (My plan used to be very good, not cheap but good.) Now it just sucks. And 2.) My Physician who, for now I can still go and see, is retiring in two years to go and take up teachin

1)
Do you actually expect me to comment on why your coverage has changed over the years?
The only person who is actually qualified to answer this question is the CFO of your insurance company.
Hate to burst your bubble but insurance companies jobs are profits. To make money they deny you care.

2) Why is my doctor retiring.
Many older physicians are finding it more difficult to practice in modern times. Medicare is making some demands from docs(one example is an electronic medical record). These are very expensive to implement, but in the long run will result in quality control improvements.(FYI this push started long before the ACA)
Remember the ACA's cuts are going to chop off payouts to docs by medicare. The offset is planned by there being less uninsured people to offset costs to hospitals. Unfortunately this does nothing for small clinics. This is part of the cost containment that allows the ACA save money 10 years from now.
Generally speaking on average doctors are working longer hours and making less money than ever before.

The one amusing thing that people fail to understand is that healthcare in the US is broken. Simply eliminating the ACA is not going to make the golden days return. That is pure fantasy.

The US population is getting older, and more expensive to care for. Medical therapies are becoming more high tech and expensive to implement and politicians are looking to REDUCE the allocation of funds.
The ACA was an attempt to fix this cycle by bringing more people into the system and forcing doctors to accept less pay.
The Republicans have claimed that the magic of the market will change all our problems, that and will try and force the consumer to pay more for insurance.

I am one hundred percent with Spesh.
The republicans are offering no specifics about how they are going to solve these problems just empty slogans.. Why because they dont have any.

I appreciate the views. However, I dont understand how we cannot come up with a plan that more people would be willing to embrace. The country is split 50/50 on this, don't you think we can have some other plan that more people can agree on?
It is affecting me here and now and I am unhappy about it and it doesn't sound like to me (from what I have read) that it will be better in the long run.

I appreciate the views. However, I dont understand how we cannot come up with a plan that more people would be willing to embrace. The country is split 50/50 on this, don't you think we can have some other plan that more people can agree on?
It is affecting me here and now and I am unhappy about it and it doesn't sound like to me (from what I have read) that it will be better in the long run.

That is a valid beef.
I am not going to walk around and tout that the ACA is a great law. It isn't. Anyone who says it is is either an Obama donor or a fool.
The way I see it... It's a start.

Medicare in its (pre ACA) trajectory was unnacceptable something had to be done. IT was truly going to break the budget in like 20years.
Unfortunately the insurance company lobby flexed its muscles and we got what we have now- The trade off of eliminating actions by insurance companies that are immoral for the individual mandate.

This wouldn't be an easy fix if the US was run by a dictator who could do essentially what they want. With the incredible amount of special interests hamstringing the process it is an impossible task.

The other issue plaguing healthcare is "fee for service". It is completely ass backwards that a doc gets compensated more for a 5 second procedure(such as a cardiologist reading an EKG) than a 30 minute visit with a patient. This leads to unnecessary labs and test. It also compensates proceduralists(docs that do procedures) over docs that don't do procedures such as primary care.
This must change for medicine to survive. Some private docs will fight this tooth and nail. Especially places that are one stop shops and do everything under one roof. It is a cash cow.

One thing I would add about ACA. My wife runs a woman's clinic/birth center here in Tampa. They just started to put caps on the number of medicaid clients they take because of the dramatic increase of them over the last few years. And to prepare themselves for the inevitable increase with Obamacare. Medicaid only pays half of what private insurance does. So they've been forced to only take so many medicaid clients. If all they took was medicaid then they would be forced to downsize and layoff workers or possibly be out of business. In order to stay afloat and make a profit they have to put caps on medicaid clients. Many people my wife knows in the field have started to do the same things. Some such as chiropractors we know have totally cut out all medicaid and medicare. Doing only cash or private insurance. I see this as one of those unintended consequences that always happens when government gets involved in things. A lot of people won't be able to have quality care simply because they're medicaid.

The crazy thing about it all is this. The birth center my wife runs charges $4800 per birth. While the hospitals charges around $15,000 a birth and over 30,000 for c-section. The government pays the 15,000 and 30,000 to the hospitals all day long through medicaid. But short changes the birth center $2400 a birth. How does this make any sense???? The whole thing is a racket.

Amid a Friday afternoon focused squarely on the details of Mitt Romney’s 2011 tax returns, the Republican candidate also quietly released a white paper on the candidate’s housing policy. As I’ve written before, the campaigns have remained quite silent on housing and foreclosures, even though the housing market is struggling and more than one in five homeowners owe more than their house is worth. The new Romney plan document is all of seven pages long–one of those pages is the cover, and three pages lay out the current situation and bash Obama’s policies. That leaves a one-page executive summary that recaps the two pages that actually outline the “plan.”

That part of the plan is, shall we say, light on details. So much so that Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal wrote (in his headline no less) that the paper “has got to be a joke.” He pointed to how Romney addressed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Government Sponsored Enterprises that guarantee mortgages and got a nearly $190 billion bailout. The white paper says: “The Romney-Ryan plan will completely end ‘too-big-to-fail’ by reforming the GSEs… Rather than just talk about reform, a Romney-Ryan Administration will protect taxpayers from additional risk in the future by reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and provide a long-term, sustainable solution for the future of housing finance reform in our country.” Got that? So Romney will reform them and do something new.How Romney will “reform” them and what will replace them isn’t specified. Republicans typically talk about ending the GSEs, so if reforming them involves something different, it could be a departure from many in the party.

Other parts of the Romney plan look an awful lot like what Obama’s plan has done–much of which has had only a limited impact.

7 total pages, 1 of those a cover. Of the 6 remaining pages 3 of them are devoted to talking about how bad Obama is. The remaining 3 talk about how he will make something new up after the election.

If i hadnt been awake these last 4 years, id almost believe Obama is a great president. Simply because Republicans keep talking about how bad he is but also refusing to say what they would do differently. I dont need reminders about how bad Obama is, i live here and can see it. What i need to know is how Romney will things differently and Romney refuses to tell me. Instead all i get are meaningless words and empty slogans. Paul Ryan spent his convention speech emphasizing how they would lead. Yet, less than 50 days before the election, i dont see any sort of leadership. All i see is them running in circles. If you want to lead something, you cant just sit here and do nothing while talking about how bad the other guy is.

Romney's entire campaign can be summed up with "I'll tell you after the election". I refuse to vote for a man who clearly has no idea what he wants to do. Its obvious Romney only wants to be president for the title. This is pathetic.

I sampled the thread quickly and noted the misconception that the race should be a slam dunk for Romney. That falls in line with the false overconfidence from Democrats in 2004. Obama is in the most favorable situational spot in American politics -- an incumbent whose party has been in power only one term. Extreme benefit of a doubt from the electorate. They aren't tired of the party or convinced the other side has all the answers. I think it's 9 for 10 over the past century+, the only defeat Carter in 1980.

If Obama were saddled with Carter's high 30s, low 40s approval rating and overseas hostage turmoil, Romney would indeed cruise. But with Obama at high 40s it's a tight race. The incumbent tends to mirror his approval rating on election day. That's the number to keep an eye on, along with national polls. The averaging of national polls these days has become so reliable it wipes out all the old desperate crutches, like claims of slanted polls. Also, don't fall for the conventional wisdom garbage that state polls are all that matters. The national margin dictates each state, which fall in line with their typical relationship to the national indications. It's called partisan index. If either man leads the national poll averaging by 1.5 to 2 or greater on election eve, he's the winner.

I'm not convinced this race tilts to Obama as much as the current polls assert. Early this year, during the GOP primaries, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com broke down every potential matchup and concluded that Romney had an 83% likelihood of victory if he were the nominee and the economy didn't improve by November. Same with sports, I always like to remember foundational evidence as opposed to infatuation with the latest news or results. There had to be a reason for that 83%. Silver now ignores it, defaulting strictly to current polls and the applied 75% theoretical advantage to Obama. I sense the truth is much lower than that 75%.

Has the economy improved? The public apparently believes it has. The right track/wrong track number jumped to 42/48 recently. Not good but notably higher than previous trends. For reference purposes, that number was in the 13/87 range in the months leading to the election in 2008. Quite precious of Romney to claim Americans can't say they are better off.

The following section will feature harsh themes and won't be popular but I'll post it anyway: The GOP is running a campaign more likely to succeed in midterms than a presidential cycle. Young females don't show up in midterms. Women are roughly 50.5% of the electorate in midterms compared to 53% in presidential years. Married women still participate in midterms but single women stay home. Consequently, the SAM voters that the conservative message is targeted to -- and delivered by -- don't have nearly the same pull in presidential years. SAMs are Simplistic Angry Males. That's the GOP base, beyond senior citizens or the wealthy. Young and predominantly white males grow up believing Republicans are the daddy party and Democrats the mommy party. They'll swallow every line, like the poster who announced that Romney will create 12 million new jobs and personally hand out a voucher to heaven. Or maybe that's Paul Ryan. Sorry. The SAM belief system is currently fixated on -- but not limited to -- birtherism, Obama as a Muslim, voter fraud, socialism, fear, exclusion, more fear, guns, more guns to justify the fear, coddling corporations regardless of their screw tendencies, and taxes as the one word to default to as substitute for paying attention. For decades it's been ridiculous that Democrats sat back and allowed it to happen, for the SAM messaging of the moment to take hold. Only Bill Clinton frustrates Republicans and dismantles their argument piece by piece. During the early stages of his speech a few weeks ago I impatiently urged him to, "Get to the math. Get to the math." Naturally he delivered it in even more devastating fashion than I projected but it's like the early minutes of a college game with 40 point favoritism. You know where the deck is stacked but until the touchdowns start to pour in there a bit of apprehension that the side relying on cheap parlor tricks may not be fully exposed.

I wouldn't have gone this far until two weeks ago. My elderly dad was hospitalized for a week. He was stuck sharing the same room with a prototype SAM. Absolutely maddening. The genius SAM put himself there by abusing alcohol and drugs while tailgating. We were watching the convention on our side of the curtain while the SAM ranted against Obama as a Muslim who hates America and will force the country into socialism if re-elected. His girlfriend is an Obama supporter who kept asking for evidence. His response, in an animated voice: "How do I know? Because I know." Unbelievable. Every time I think MSNBC or Bill Maher are going too far with their tones, I run into SAMs in Las Vegas sportsbooks, or sample their posts on certain message boards. College football boards are a SAM staple right now, given the SEC dominance of late.

I'm reminded of children's literature, and a potential slogan: "SAM I Am." Heck, they probably wouldn't balk at it. Once again I'll default to situational impact. I grew up in opposition to the GOP but not unimpressed by their leaders or spokesmen. Short burst big picture ideas. Somewhere along the line it changed. William Buckley and George Will gave way to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. I came to realize that the over the top conservative mouth pieces had grown up during the '70s and particularly the '80s, when all you had to do was mock Democrats as liberal and twist the candidate into anything you wanted. That was guaranteed to work when the math was on your side: Reagan ran with whites as 90% of the electorate in '80, and '89% in '84. Now it's down to 74% and steadily sliding. That's why I always get a kick out of calls for another Reagan. He wouldn't enjoy nearly the same advantages today. It's like me pretending as a Canes fan that it's 1980 again, with the Orange Bowl still intact and rocking, with Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde and all the other greats nearly ready to assemble on campus. Limbaugh and all the others awaited their turn as most influential, with no comprehension that the electorate had already begun to shift the other way, dramatically altering the margin for error.

I'm hardly saying Romney can't win. He absolutely can win. With unemployment numbers like we have, and below average growth rate, an incumbent is undeniably vulnerable. Romney already won a race against a poor situational backdrop in 2002. The economy had dropped from Clinton highs. 9/11 caused unease. Voters were determined to lash out against somebody and in state after state the holding party took it on the chin in gubernatorial races if an incumbent wasn't there to state his/her case. It was a ridiculous percentage over the span of a few years, something like 21 of 23 states changing hands if it was an open race. That's how you got so many weird gubernatorial takeovers in 2002, like Republicans in Maryland and Hawaii, with Democrats in Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Tennessee, Arizona, Montana. But in Maryland the trend should have pointed to Shannon O'Brien, the Democrat. Massachusetts was already run by a Republican, prior to Romney. When Romney defeated O'Brien against the trend -- and by several points -- I took notice and worried about his national prospects. I view the guy as a creep but obviously that's not unanimously shared.

If Romney prevails it will be narrowly. That's what I was getting at. Republicans have forfeited most of their huge natural advantage -- 33% self-described conservatives nationwide to 21% liberals -- by alienating a huge chunk of the electorate and somehow ignoring the shifting math, the demographic trends working against them. Florida is a convenient example. In 2004 George Bush won Florida when 72.6% of the registered voters were white. That dropped to 69.1% in 2008, and is down to 67.5% this year. That's what Romney is dealing with. Cubans may be pro-Republican but any time that percentage of whites drops it's bad new for the GOP. That's why they desperately invented voter fraud as a means to massage the electorate at the other end, as a counter to demographic shifts.

Granted, if Romney wins this time in he'll enjoy the same situational advantage in 2016 that I mentioned long ago in the opening paragraph -- incumbent/party one term in power. It's extremely, extremely unlikely that trend would be overcome two cycles in a row. For one thing, Romney and his party would receive credit for the economic uptick, which is inevitable. That's why this race is essentially a 2-for-1 for Romney. He'll be our president until January 2021 if successful in 6 weeks. Supreme Court nominations and everything else.

And 2016 is the only logical prospect for a lopsided GOP victory. If Romney fails this time, the Republicans will face an open race four years from now, with the demographics further moving away from them, putting states like Arizona in play.

I sampled the thread quickly and noted the misconception that the race should be a slam dunk for Romney. That falls in line with the false overconfidence from Democrats in 2004. Obama is in the most favorable situational spot in American politics -- an incumbent whose party has been in power only one term. Extreme benefit of a doubt from the electorate. They aren't tired of the party or convinced the other side has all the answers. I think it's 9 for 10 over the past century+, the only defeat Carter in 1980.

If Obama were saddled with Carter's high 30s, low 40s approval rating and overseas hostage turmoil, Romney would indeed cruise. But with Obama at high 40s it's a tight race. The incumbent tends to mirror his approval rating on election day. That's the number to keep an eye on, along with national polls. The averaging of national polls these days has become so reliable it wipes out all the old desperate crutches, like claims of slanted polls. Also, don't fall for the conventional wisdom garbage that state polls are all that matters. The national margin dictates each state, which fall in line with their typical relationship to the national indications. It's called partisan index. If either man leads the national poll averaging by 1.5 to 2 or greater on election eve, he's the winner.

I'm not convinced this race tilts to Obama as much as the current polls assert. Early this year, during the GOP primaries, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com broke down every potential matchup and concluded that Romney had an 83% likelihood of victory if he were the nominee and the economy didn't improve by November. Same with sports, I always like to remember foundational evidence as opposed to infatuation with the latest news or results. There had to be a reason for that 83%. Silver now ignores it, defaulting strictly to current polls and the applied 75% theoretical advantage to Obama. I sense the truth is much lower than that 75%.

Has the economy improved? The public apparently believes it has. The right track/wrong track number jumped to 42/48 recently. Not good but notably higher than previous trends. For reference purposes, that number was in the 13/87 range in the months leading to the election in 2008. Quite precious of Romney to claim Americans can't say they are better off.

The following section will feature harsh themes and won't be popular but I'll post it anyway: The GOP is running a campaign more likely to succeed in midterms than a presidential cycle. Young females don't show up in midterms. Women are roughly 50.5% of the electorate in midterms compared to 53% in presidential years. Married women still participate in midterms but single women stay home. Consequently, the SAM voters that the conservative message is targeted to -- and delivered by -- don't have nearly the same pull in presidential years. SAMs are Simplistic Angry Males. That's the GOP base, beyond senior citizens or the wealthy. Young and predominantly white males grow up believing Republicans are the daddy party and Democrats the mommy party. They'll swallow every line, like the poster who announced that Romney will create 12 million new jobs and personally hand out a voucher to heaven. Or maybe that's Paul Ryan. Sorry. The SAM belief system is currently fixated on -- but not limited to -- birtherism, Obama as a Muslim, voter fraud, socialism, fear, exclusion, more fear, guns, more guns to justify the fear, coddling corporations regardless of their screw tendencies, and taxes as the one word to default to as substitute for paying attention. For decades it's been ridiculous that Democrats sat back and allowed it to happen, for the SAM messaging of the moment to take hold. Only Bill Clinton frustrates Republicans and dismantles their argument piece by piece. During the early stages of his speech a few weeks ago I impatiently urged him to, "Get to the math. Get to the math." Naturally he delivered it in even more devastating fashion than I projected but it's like the early minutes of a college game with 40 point favoritism. You know where the deck is stacked but until the touchdowns start to pour in there a bit of apprehension that the side relying on cheap parlor tricks may not be fully exposed.

I wouldn't have gone this far until two weeks ago. My elderly dad was hospitalized for a week. He was stuck sharing the same room with a prototype SAM. Absolutely maddening. The genius SAM put himself there by abusing alcohol and drugs while tailgating. We were watching the convention on our side of the curtain while the SAM ranted against Obama as a Muslim who hates America and will force the country into socialism if re-elected. His girlfriend is an Obama supporter who kept asking for evidence. His response, in an animated voice: "How do I know? Because I know." Unbelievable. Every time I think MSNBC or Bill Maher are going too far with their tones, I run into SAMs in Las Vegas sportsbooks, or sample their posts on certain message boards. College football boards are a SAM staple right now, given the SEC dominance of late.

I'm reminded of children's literature, and a potential slogan: "SAM I Am." Heck, they probably wouldn't balk at it. Once again I'll default to situational impact. I grew up in opposition to the GOP but not unimpressed by their leaders or spokesmen. Short burst big picture ideas. Somewhere along the line it changed. William Buckley and George Will gave way to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. I came to realize that the over the top conservative mouth pieces had grown up during the '70s and particularly the '80s, when all you had to do was mock Democrats as liberal and twist the candidate into anything you wanted. That was guaranteed to work when the math was on your side: Reagan ran with whites as 90% of the electorate in '80, and '89% in '84. Now it's down to 74% and steadily sliding. That's why I always get a kick out of calls for another Reagan. He wouldn't enjoy nearly the same advantages today. It's like me pretending as a Canes fan that it's 1980 again, with the Orange Bowl still intact and rocking, with Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde and all the other greats nearly ready to assemble on campus. Limbaugh and all the others awaited their turn as most influential, with no comprehension that the electorate had already begun to shift the other way, dramatically altering the margin for error.

I'm hardly saying Romney can't win. He absolutely can win. With unemployment numbers like we have, and below average growth rate, an incumbent is undeniably vulnerable. Romney already won a race against a poor situational backdrop in 2002. The economy had dropped from Clinton highs. 9/11 caused unease. Voters were determined to lash out against somebody and in state after state the holding party took it on the chin in gubernatorial races if an incumbent wasn't there to state his/her case. It was a ridiculous percentage over the span of a few years, something like 21 of 23 states changing hands if it was an open race. That's how you got so many weird gubernatorial takeovers in 2002, like Republicans in Maryland and Hawaii, with Democrats in Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Tennessee, Arizona, Montana. But in Maryland the trend should have pointed to Shannon O'Brien, the Democrat. Massachusetts was already run by a Republican, prior to Romney. When Romney defeated O'Brien against the trend -- and by several points -- I took notice and worried about his national prospects. I view the guy as a creep but obviously that's not unanimously shared.

If Romney prevails it will be narrowly. That's what I was getting at. Republicans have forfeited most of their huge natural advantage -- 33% self-described conservatives nationwide to 21% liberals -- by alienating a huge chunk of the electorate and somehow ignoring the shifting math, the demographic trends working against them. Florida is a convenient example. In 2004 George Bush won Florida when 72.6% of the registered voters were white. That dropped to 69.1% in 2008, and is down to 67.5% this year. That's what Romney is dealing with. Cubans may be pro-Republican but any time that percentage of whites drops it's bad new for the GOP. That's why they desperately invented voter fraud as a means to massage the electorate at the other end, as a counter to demographic shifts.

Granted, if Romney wins this time in he'll enjoy the same situational advantage in 2016 that I mentioned long ago in the opening paragraph -- incumbent/party one term in power. It's extremely, extremely unlikely that trend would be overcome two cycles in a row. For one thing, Romney and his party would receive credit for the economic uptick, which is inevitable. That's why this race is essentially a 2-for-1 for Romney. He'll be our president until January 2021 if successful in 6 weeks. Supreme Court nominations and everything else.

And 2016 is the only logical prospect for a lopsided GOP victory. If Romney fails this time, the Republicans will face an open race four years from now, with the demographics further moving away from them, putting states like Arizona in play.

Damn good post Awsi...

If I could take your pain and frame it, and hang it on my wall,
maybe you would never have to hurt again...